


why look at that moon

by Nikolaus_Chaser



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Celestial war, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Castiel, M/M, Magic, Soldier Castiel, Witch Dean Winchester, Witch Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-16 15:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13638906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikolaus_Chaser/pseuds/Nikolaus_Chaser
Summary: Castiel falls.  In a crippled state, he’s found by the Witch brothers Dean and Sam Winchester, and they take him into their home.  Then Castiel recieves a distress call from his brother-in-arms, and he knows he is the only one who can save Benjamin.  But will he be able to act in time, or will he fail again?





	1. Chapter 1

In the fervor of battle, Castiel’s focus had been on keeping his field of vision clear, keeping the province of his battalion protected from enemies.  Castiel had trusted his brothers, the soldiers stationed behind him, to defend his back as fiercely as he defended theirs.

He didn’t react immediately to the explosions.  He heard, for a moment, the crash of a bomb detonating somewhere close-by.  He drew his sword to defend himself, but in the flurry of heat and fire it slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor, falling down, down.  Blood dripped from Castiel’s hand, and he brought his fingers close to his face, unsure of where the inky red ooze on his forearm was coming from. And then he screamed because he realized then that he couldn’t feel anything.  In his ears, ringing, he heard the voices of his brothers calling out to him.  He had a distinct impression that he was falling, but he couldn’t feel the muscles in his back or the cords of his wings as he tried to swing them through the air.  It hurt, like something sharp was stabbing his back every time he moved.  He tried anyway, screaming in agony with every single movement, and even those futile attempts to shift his wings did not seem to help.  He was falling, and he couldn't even help himself.

He lost track of the voices in his ear.  He closed his eyes and braced against the wind, the cold, his body quaking violently as he hurtled downward.  He couldn't feel the wind in his feathers; he wondered for a moment if his wings were even there. It shouldn’t have been long now, he thought, before he was dead.  He wished he couldn’t hear his brothers calling out to him.  He thought he saw somebody soaring towards him, chasing his body as he plummeted towards the surface, trying to catch up to him.  Castiel cried and reached out his hand, trying to grasp his brother’s arm, desperately.

Behind his eyes, his vision went black just as he felt his brother’s fingers graze his own.  They touched, Castiel's blood sticky and gritty between their hands, but then that hand was gone again and replaced by nothing other than water vapor and ozone. It’s no use, Balthazar.  Benjamin.  Anna.  Castiel had fallen; he was gone now.

Goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

“Nah, man, I think it landed somewhere over this way,” Dean says gruffly, pushing through a thicket of vines and stomping his way up the hill.  His brother Sam complains with an exasperated sigh, trudging after his brother, pushing branches out of his face as twigs threaten to poke his eyes out.

“Are you really sure?  Because fallen stars usually leave giant craters wherever they land and this topography _—_ ” he grunts, nearly tripping over an exposed tree root.  He scowls, “ _—_ is pretty damn hilly.”

“Sam,” Dean glances back at his brother and rolls his eyes, “I know what I saw.  Flash of thunder, big light, soared through the sky and landed in these woods somewhere.  Now quit complaining and just help me look around.  You know we could really use a fallen star.”

There is no argument from Sam on that point.  The power harnessed by one fallen star, according to the lore, is enough to raise the dead; to extend a witch’s life; to open doors to parallel dimensions.  Sam’s heart skips a beat at the thought.  “We need it’s heart,” Sam says,  “If we could harness that kind of power, I could work out a spell that would save Mom.”  

Dean nods in agreement, because that fact has been obvious to him since he saw that bright fiery light soaring through the midsummer’s evening sky. He picks up his pace.

“Come on, we’re close.  I can feel it,” Dean says. The brother’s hasten ahead, cutting branches and vines away as they stomp a path through the dense forest.  Dean is a little bit puzzled that the terrain isn’t completely flattened like his brother said; the last fallen star to come down to earth, nearly thirty years ago, he remembers had flattened an entire mountain with its landing.  That place is a cow farm now, the fallen star and her heart gone, long-ago harvested by whatever witches or creatures sought her power at that time.

“Dean,” Sam barks urgently, and Dean pivots to see where his brother is pointing to.  In a small clearing, there’s a man-shaped crater in the earth, a pile of soil and rocks displaced beside it.  What appears to be a black canvas sheet covers whatever body is lying inside the pit, still steaming from its impact with the earth.

Dean and Sam inch closer, both readying their blades.  Dean steps forward first, eyes raking over the scene before him, heart hammering in his chest.  He realizes as he steps forward that the black mass is not a sheet or cloak of any kind.  It’s a mound of feathers, burned and charred, hanging limply from the bony, shredded wings of the thing that lies within the pit.  The man who lies within the pit, with tangled hair, black as night, and tan skin, covered in scratches and blood and burns.  

Dean curses and lets his blade fall to the soft earth with a quiet _thump_ .  This is no star.  

This, _by God_ , Dean thinks, is a fallen Angel of the Lord.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam keeps pacing around, freaking out, because they have  _ a confounded Angel of the Lord  _ lying, disheveled and bloody on their pull-out couch and they have no clue who he really is at all, or where he even came from.  He’s still unconscious.  Dean sends him to make some herbal tea for the both of them and then goes to retrieve a blanket from the linen closet, draping it over the being to no reaction.  

His thigh brushes against one of its wings hanging off the side of the couch and a couple of feathers flit towards the ground.  Dean winces and steps away.

He doesn’t go very far.  He skirts around the edge of the couch and settles his butt onto the coffee table in front of the sofa.  The angel’s body is stretched across the cushions in what can’t be a comfortable position, plated armor covering most of his body.  In the places where that armor is cracked or missing, Dean can see the being’s flesh is red and swollen and bloody.  He frowns, reaching forward and letting his palm hover just over the wounded skin; it radiates heat, like it’s maybe still burning, and Dean wonders what in the world could have injured an Angel so gravely.

He draws his hands back and blows cool air into the palm of his hand, closing is eyes and concentrating.   _ Angelus sanati navitas super hoc.  Angelus sanati navitas super hoc.   _ A red light fills the palm of Dean’s hand, growing brighter and bigger the more he concentrates on the act of creating the healing energy. 

Sam returns with two cups of tea, watching his brother from the doorway for a few moments.  “Need sage?” he asks.  Dean casts a sidelong glance at his brother, then nods curtly, finally finishing filling his palm with cool air.  He pushes the small orb of energy towards the Angel’s body and hovers his palm over the most wounded area, seeing as the blood slowly dries and the skin knits itself back together.

The Angel’s eyes pop open suddenly, staring without blinking right at Dean, and he feels as if he’s been swallowed up in a sea of other wordly blue.  He pulls away from Its body completely, settling his hands, folded, into his lap.

There’s a horrifying, shrill sound that fills the room, like the sound one might hear if they were stuck in a bolt of lightning as it came down from the heavens.  The ground shakes, jars rattling off from shelves on the wall, and the lights flicker and shatter as dean reaches to cover his ears.  He falls off of the coffee table and onto his knees, crying out in pain.  He can  feel the voice of this thing piercing his ear drums like a hundred tiny needles sticking him in the ear at once, breaking his ear drums, melting his brain.  He can feel blood trickling from his ears, nd his vision begins to grow dizzy.

And then, as swiftly as it began it stops.  The Angel is still staring at him when Dean looks up, crystal blue eyes narrowed down at him.  “Who are you?” he asks in English, with a hoarse voice.  Dean frowns and forces himself to stand up, dusting his jeans and settling back onto the coffee table.

“I’m Dean Winchester.  I’m a witch.  My brother and I found you in the woods, you were —you are—really hurt.  I’ve never even seen a weapon that could do this kind of damage to an Angel.”

He frowns, wincing as he shifts his body against the cushions, carefully reaching for his belly and, with long fingers, unbuckling his armor.  The skin he exposes looks red and burnt, shriveled, but not bloody or torn like the other, unexposed areas had been.  His face twists in displeasure; Sam returns to the room with sage in hand, jaw dropping at the destructed state of the room.

“What happened?” he shouts.  Dean and the Angel both look up and notice for the first time that Sam has entered the room, they’d both been too concentrated on examining his wounds to pay attention to much anything else.

“I was trying to communicate with your brother,” the Angel says, looking Sam up and down with a contemplative frown.  “I assume this is your brother.”

Dean coughs, a hand reaching out to touch his own ear, feel the drying blood that’s still trickling sluggishly from his skull.  “Some voice you got there, huh?”

The Angel scowls in Deans direction.  “Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.”

“Hey,” Sam barks, dropping the sage he’s been holding onto the coffee table and crossing his arms about his chest.  “We’re just trying to help you, here.  Who  _ are  _ you anyway?”

“Castiel,” he answers with disinterest, back to examining the burn marks on his stomach.  He presses down on an oozing wound, wincing in pain; it looks like it’s something he isn’t quite used to experiencing.”

“I meant, what are you?” Sam badgers on.  Castiel raises one skeptical brow in his direction, then looks away again without saying anything.  Sam scoffs; Dean lets out a sigh and directs a half-hearted glare at his brother.  Sam shrugs, as if to say it’s not his fault that Castiel is a douchebag, and wanders off to the library to collect some spell books on angels.  Dean snatches the sage up from the tabletop and scoots closer to the edge of the couch.

“Here, let me,” he says, soft.  Castiel eyes him with skepticism but doesn’t push Dean away when he reaches out and touches castiel’s belly, pushing his energy towards the angel, urging his body to heal.  Castiel leans back against the couch, head pillowed on a cushion, and closes his eyes.

His last fleeting thought before he drops off into unconsciousness, is that he can’t feel his wings attached to his body.


	4. Chapter 4

_ “I think there’s something wrong, Dean.  I’ve never heard of an angel sleeping before.” _

_ “Hell yeah there’s something wrong, Sammy.  I mean just look at his wings, they’re basically shredded to pieces.  Whatever got at this guy… it must’ve been bad.” _

_ “You think they’re still after him?” _

_ “I hope the hell not.” _

Castiel blinks his eyes open hazily, scowling at the dim lamplight casting an orange glow over the entirety of the room he is sequestered in.  He can hear the murmur of the brothers’ quiet conversation, probably coming from just outside of the room he has been dumped in, as they continue to discuss his condition and whatever they think must have put him into such bad shape.

He huffs and forces himself to sit up on the couch, wincing at the way his damaged and burnt skin pulls.  Castiel knows exactly what did this to him; a holy oil bomb that was detonated just meters away from his station on the clouds had been the culprit to knock him down from his perch and to set fire to his wings.  He recalls Dean’s whispered words; he’d said Castiel’s wings were  _ shredded to pieces _ .  With some trepidation Castiel shifts again, propping his body up completely and craning his neck to examine the heavy black wings that typically loom over his form, sprouting from his shoulder blades.  He lets out a painful cry when all he sees left of his beautiful wings are charred black bone, a few pathetic and burnt feathers hanging from the exposed tendons.  He squawks, reaching back to grapple at his own appendages, horrified when he can’t even feel the touch of his own fingers to the bone.  He’s ruined.

“Cas!” Dean and Sam both come stomping into the room, loud and bumptious creatures these humans are, and Castiel glares at them and clutches his broken wings close to his body in a protective way.  “Don’t _ — _ hurt yourself,” Dean stops several feet away from Castiel’s couch, hand outstretched towards the angel.

“Dean,” Sam says cautiously.  Dean holds his hand up to his brother placatingly, then drops his hands to his sides and moves slowly, carefully towards Castiel.  The angel watches with weary eyes, but puts up no protest when Dean kneels on the floor beside his perch.

“Can I see?” He whispers.  Castiel nods, holding out his wing for Dean to examine with  his eyes.  The human doesn’t reach out to touch, and though Castiel knows he wouldn't feel it anyway, he appreciates the respect.  His throat bobs as Dean’s eyes sweep his appendages, sympathetic pain glowing in his eyes.  “Can you feel ‘em, Cas?”

“No,” Castiel answers with a shameful whisper.  He can't feel his wings at all, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do about that.


	5. Interlude

An Angel’s wings are their life.  They are the very first part of the Angel that God ever created, the powerhouse of the Angel’s grace.  A manifestation of their might and their beauty and their grace.  

Their wings are a source of pride amongst the Angels.  A source of bonding.  They would take the time to preen the wings of their brothers and sisters, making their feathers shine.  They would use their wings to attract mates; to show off the most beautiful parts of their body to their family and kin and prove themselves worthy.

Castiel’s wings are the finest in his entire garrison.  Company angels come near and far to gaze on the sleek, white feathers that arch over his back and carry him gracefully through the air.  He has female angels lined up to court him, to groom and preen his wings for him during mating season.  His brothers envy him for the beauty of his wings, and in the jealous privacy of their minds they call him God’s favorite, to be blessed with such beautiful and powerful wings.

Castiel loves to fly.  When he was just a fledgeling he’d spend all his time racing through the clouds with his brothers, practicing flight speed and agility.  He’d fly circles around his older brothers Michael and Gabriel, until they barked at him in annoyance to fly off and bother somebody else.  He would laugh then, and ruffle his feathers, and even they would gze after him with wonder and envy at the beautiful pinion of their brother.

In Battle, the wings are used to warn off enemies.  The Angel would flare their coverts and spread the primaries, to show their enemy how large they were; how terrifying.  The first time Castiel spread his wings in a deimatic display, even the soldiers in his own garrison had trembled for a moment.  Nobody dared to step forward and fight Castiel when his wings were spread, their span nearly double that of the other Angels and certainly more intimidating.  Besides, none of Castiel’s brothers wanted to be the Angel responsible for tarnishing the beautiful white feathers of Castiel’s wings.

For wings like those to be ruined, well that would be a shame before God and all of Heaven.


End file.
